Timeline: Suzanne Pilley murder case

How the events unfolded in the Suzanne Pilley murder case.

• May 4, 2010

Office worker Suzanne Pilley, 38, does not turn up for work at Infrastructure Management in Thistle Street, Edinburgh and is later reported missing by her parents who she last contacted by text at around 8.30am that day.

• May 11

Police searching for Miss Pilley, who is from the Stenhouse area of Edinburgh, say she may have been the victim of a “criminal act”.

• May 18

Miss Pilley’s employers release a statement saying her disappearance is “completely out of character”.

• May 19

Lothian and Borders Police begin treating Miss Pilley’s disappearance as a murder investigation after finding CCTV footage of her outside her office on Thistle Street on the morning she disappeared. Her parents Robert and Sylvia say they are “devastated” at her disappearance.

• May 20

Police expand their investigation to a 400 sq mile area of Argyll, stretching from Tyndrum to Inveraray and the Argyll Forest. Detectives appeal for information about the movements of a silver vehicle driven by a man on remote roads across Argyll and Bute on the afternoon of May 5. It emerges that police think Miss Pilley’s body may have been hidden in a remote part of the Forest of Argyll.

• June 1

Police focus their search on the Glen Croe Forest, near the Rest And Be Thankful on the A83 in Argyll. Officers believe she was killed on the day she went missing and her body dumped in countryside in the west of Scotland.

• June 4

Dog teams are brought in to help with the search.

• June 23

Police charge Miss Pilley’s former lover David Gilroy.

• June 24

Gilroy appears at Edinburgh Sheriff Court charged with Miss Pilley’s murder. He is released on bail.

• August 14

Police begin searching an area of Argyll Forest, helped by around 70 volunteers including mountain rescue teams.

• August 15

The search is stood down after no significant discoveries are made.

• November 9, 2011

David Gilroy makes his first appearance in open court at the High Court in Glasgow. He is charged with killing Suzanne Pilley, 38, on May 4 2010 in Edinburgh or elsewhere and is also accused of trying to cover up the office worker’s death. He denies the charges. A trial date is set for February 20 2012 at the High Court in Edinburgh.

• February 20, 2012

David Gilroy goes on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh accused of murdering Miss Pilley.

• February 22

The jury in the trial retraces Miss Pilley’s last-known movements in Edinburgh city centre before she went missing.

The prosecution closes its case, withdrawing three separate charges against the accused: breach of the peace, assault and an offence under the Computer Misuse Act, meaning Gilroy is acquitted of those charges.

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